Sunday, May 22, 2016

BS’ing Myself

Did you ever have an Ah-Ha moment when you realized how you were bullshitting yourself? And, you could see how your mouth had just opened up and swallowed the biggest bunch of crap ever. And, you had fed it to yourself! Well, for about 60 years I never tasted my own bullshit and then one day something happened.

It seemED impossible to me that I could lie to myself like a great politician and do it so well that I didn’t know it. How is it possible to be the deceiver and the deceived at the same time? It cannot be — can it?

My aha was laying on a table being checked out by a PT (physical therapist) for left hip weakness. He was giving me advice on different exercises and movements I should do to fix the problem. And, I am thinking, I used to do that. I Used to do that too. I USed to do that one. I USEd to do those. I USED to do all that!!!!

After leaving the PT and having time to think about the state I was in and realizing my body deterioration was almost 100% my own doing, instead of chastising myself, moving on, and forgetting about the whole thing, I tried to look at where did the decision-making go south. That was when the web of deceit and lies I had woven started to unwind ever so slowly. My mind did not really want to give up this info because this is precious ego stuff. It was like a foggy blanket over my consciousness of a particular aspect of my life. The ramifications are huge when you think about it. If one does this once in one part of their life, the odds are pretty good they are doing it in other parts as well.

One of the reasons I am writing this is so I remember how the fog burned off and made the web of deceit visible. It took a while to see how I built the wall brick-by-brick to block off the view and the memories. I am sure my ego-mind thought it was doing me a favor. The reality was it was slowly killing me. That sounds dramatic but I don’t think overly so. Let me explain.

After a hernia operation last August I was in a lot of pain. At least for me it was a lot of pain because I have been lucky health-wise most of my life. So, for two weeks I could not stand up straight because my gut hurt so bad. And, my mind just kept telling me to take it easy and not do too much which was good advice at the time. But, six months later, that was not good advice. Yet, until I went to the PT and he gave me an exercise program almost identical to what I was doing before, all the answers remained hidden.

As I peeled away the layers, I started to see how we build walls inside walls of beliefs that hide the truth we need from us. One of the ways this happens is that what is true at one time is not at another. For example, giving pilates exercises a break right after hernia surgery was a good decision and true to my needs. Three months later, that was not true to my needs. As humans, we think truth is a static, unchanging principle. I don’t think this is true and it is why we must constantly challenge our own beliefs. If we don’t then rigidity will set in and we will stop improving and start to decay. It makes me wonder how much of getting older is actually predestined in our genetics and how much is a result of our own actions.

So, even if you accept what I have said. And, even if I accept this, how do we decide what beliefs to reexamine? Should we have an ongoing process? I think so. There are lots of really smart people who write about this all the time. I am seeking them out and reading them and am trying to synthesize those ideas into a process that works for me. I will write about that in a later post.

If you have found any of these thinkers, please comment below so I can add them to my reading list. Thanks!